It's supposed to be a "controlled bankruptcy," not the death knell of a once-great company. It's a way to reemerge, like Phoenix, from the ashes. We've expected it for some time.

All the same, it's still a shock. Who'd have thought it would ever happen in our lifetimes? GM was the very backbone of our country, its stock solid as bedrock. "What's good for General Motors is good for the United States of America."

I guess we're still supposed to believe that. With one in ten jobs in our economy dependent upon the auto industry, we need to pump yet more billions down the memory hole and just pray that this particular infusion will work.

A word about competitiveness on the world market: It doesn't matter how well you build a car, if the Japanese, the Koreans or the Germans can build one just as well at a lower cost. Until Congress passes some meaningful health care legislation that takes some of the burden off corporations, companies like GM will always have to build health care expense into the price of each unit they sell.

A silver lining...maybe this is just the kind of pressure our spineless pols need to resist the siren call of the health care industry for once in their craven lives. Yeah...that's the American Dream.